The Revolutionary Working Class

Everywhere people are waking up and fighting against the oppression and exploitation which is a daily fact of their lives. The lies of the ruling class about “prosperity” are being further exposed every-day. There is prosperity alright – but it is for a handful of rich capitalists – the conditions of the working people are getting worse and worse. This system of capitalism is set up with one thing in mind – to make the most profits possible for the handful of people who own the big banks and corporations. It is the system under which we, and our parents and grandparents before us, have done all the work. We mine the mines, build the buildings, manufacture all the products: and then get just enough to live on – if we fight hard enough for it! On the other hand the small capitalist class builds up huge fortunes off of our labour. The Socialist Party stands for the complete overthrow of the world capitalist system. There is only one class capable of conducting the struggle for a successful socialist revolution. That class is the working class. The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win!

All the resources for a world of abundance, without pollution, disease and squalor, exist at the present time in skill, technique and science. They are the same resources used to produce pollution and destruction. They cannot be used for constructive purposes till the capitalist system of profit-making is overthrown. Grim reality teaches that the alternative posed by Marx and Engels of democratic socialism or barbarism has been transformed into a united world socialist society or annihilation. While capitalism remains, the resources produced by the labour of the workers will be squandered. Marx did not speak of ‘state-socialism’ [state-capitalism], which he opposed strongly, but of "the association of free and equal producers", directing their work themselves. It is not possible for a centralised bureaucracy of planners and experts to ascertain all needs, prescribe all the work and supervise all the processes in their details; all the proposed systems lead to arbitrariness in distribution by a ruling minority. Self-rule of the free and equal producers, on the one hand, is able to regulate production and distribution without difficulty.

Humanity is at a crossroads. Capitalism’s continued rule offers humanity nothing but more wars, more mass acts of terror and grinding exploitation and poverty. The capitalist system was erected on unspeakable violence, Cromwell and Robespierre weren’t known for squeamish scruples. The world’s working class, the one class with no essential interest in oppression or exploitation, has the potential to put an end to capitalist barbarism. If it rises up to overthrow the capitalists in revolutions the planet over, it can take hold of the productive power of the world economy to put an end to poverty and build a world of abundance for all. It can end the racism, chauvinism and sex and gender oppression that thrives on capitalism’s world of want and competition. Only by building a global socialist movement can the working class prepare itself for the titanic task of undoing the disasters the capitalists keep making—and building a new world in their place. A socialist society is not created by steps toward socialism. Socialism is a result of conscious social building, planned and conducted by the organised workers who have won political power and supported by the majority of the population. There are no short cuts. There are several parties around that call themselves “communist” or “socialist”. We have important disagreements with them. These parties all have one thing in common – they all dress themselves up with high-sounding revolutionary phrases, but underneath they are defenders of capitalism.

Socialism is based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and exchange, upon production for use as against production for profit, upon the abolition of all classes, all class divisions, class privilege, class rule, upon the production of such abundance that the struggle for material needs is completely eliminated, so that humanity, at last freed from economic exploitation, from oppression, from any form of coercion by a state machine, can devote itself to its fullest intellectual and cultural development. Much can perhaps be added to this definition, but anything less you can call whatever you wish, but it will not be socialism.

Marxism is our guide to action. We need the theory because it helps us win. But it is not the Party’s personal property. It belongs to the working class and is a mighty weapon of the working class. It is the business of all advanced workers to grasp this theory and use it in the struggle to liberate our class. The struggle for worldwide socialist system is long and arduous. Unfortunately, the movement of the working class does not proceed in a straight line. Setbacks are inevitable, but they cannot erase the class struggle which must go on until it has been solved by the removal of exploiting classes. The working class is revolutionary because it must be.